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Jan 20 2022
Fiscal Policy
By:
Scott Sumner
I often see people claim that Modern Monetary Theory is increasingly influential. I see no evidence for that claim. One problem is that people use the term MMT is two very different ways. In some cases, MMT refers to a theory of how the monetary system works. It's a model. In another context, MMT refers to a bun...
Jan 20 2022
Economic Methods
By:
Bryan Caplan
Back in 2011, many futurists expected online education to give traditional four-year colleges a run for their money. I demurred, arguing that: Education is not primarily about teaching concrete skills. It’s a stably wasteful way to sort people according to their intelligence, conscientiousness, conformity, ...
Jan 19 2022
Public Health
By:
David Henderson
Various friends are linking to Jonathan Chait's recent article, "School Closures Were a Catastrophic Error. Progressives Still Haven't Reckoned With It," New York Magazine, January 17, 2022. It really is quite good. I found the analogy in the second paragraph below faulty: Social scientists have measured the factor...
Jan 19 2022
Competition
By:
David Henderson
An entry in the "unsurprising facts" department. It occurred to me that Bryan Caplan should have contacted me by now to tell me that I had lost a bet to him. The fact that he didn't led me to consider two possibilities: (1) I won and he's purposely not telling me, or (2) I lost but he's too busy to notice. I imme...
Jan 19 2022
International Trade
By:
Scott Sumner
A recent study by Lydia Cox showed that the steel tariffs imposed back in 2002-03 ended up doing more harm than good: In this paper, I study the long-term effects that temporary upstream tariffs have on downstream industries. Even temporary tariffs can have cascading effects through production networks when placed o...
Jan 19 2022
Incentives
By:
Bryan Caplan
I have a modest proposal. Every large bureaucratic organization - schools, corporations, charities, and of course every level of government - should create an Office of Unreasonable Rules. The sole power of this Office is to hear complaints about unreasonable rules elsewhere in their organizations. Should they de...
Jan 18 2022
Public Health
By:
David Henderson
Mixing politics and science Freddie Sayers, at UnHerd, has an excellent 30-minute podcast with Cyrille Cohen, head of immunology at Bar Ilan University and an advisor to the Israeli government on vaccines. Cohen is so unlike Anthony Fauci. Fauci talks like a politician; Cohen talks like a truth-seeking scientist,...
Read this Pierre Lemieux Liberty Classic:
Nov 5 2018
Liberty Classics
By Pierre Lemieux
James Buchanan is not easy to categorize. Is he a libertarian? A classical liberal? A conservative? Or perhaps even a "liberal" in the modern American sense of "progressive" or "social democrat"? Is he an economist or a philosopher? It is paradoxical but not totally wrong to answer "all of the above," so complex and ri...
Jan 18 2022
Liberty
By:
Pierre Lemieux
A Communist representative in the French National Assembly, André Chassaigne, probably expresses what many if not most people believe, in America as in France---that the role of politics is to respond to the needs of people. Is there anything wrong with that? Mr. Chassaigne just declared in an interview (Le Point, Jan...
Jan 18 2022
Behavioral Economics
By:
Bryan Caplan
People's behavior shows that they place immense value on convenience. Think about how much you dread calling technical support. Doing your taxes. Filling out medical forms. Yet politicians almost never name "convenience" as an important value. It just doesn't sound good to say, "Sorry, we could save your life...
Jan 17 2022
Money and Inflation
By:
David Henderson
Devon Zuegel writes: Inflation hits some parts of the economy harder and faster than others. It's obvious once you say it, and yet the way pundits and academics talk about inflation glosses over this reality. As a result, most people who haven't had direct experience with high inflation have a flawed view of how it af...
Jan 17 2022
Macroeconomics
By:
Scott Sumner
In 2009, Air France Flight 447 crashed while on route from Rio to Paris. Data from the flight recorder suggest multiple problems led to the disaster. In a stressful and confusing environment, one of the copilots moved a control stick in the wrong direction, which worsened the problem of the plane stalling. After...
Jan 17 2022
Behavioral Economics
By:
Bryan Caplan
Scott Alexander got married! Congratulations to the happy couple. And true to form, Scott takes a rationalist approach to the whole experience, starting with details on his search algorithm: [M] recommendation for those of you in the same place I was ten years ago is: accrue micromarriages. Micromarriages come...
Jan 16 2022
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
By:
David Henderson
I just finished writing my review of Steven E. Rhoads's excellent book titled The Economist's View of the World. It's excellent. In a longer than usual review, I didn't have space to highlight his discussion of U.S. government subsidies to fossil fuels. We often hear how high they are. But Rhoads footnotes a Brookings ...
Jan 16 2022
Liberty
By:
David Henderson
A sad commentary on respect for freedom of thought in Australia. SYDNEY—Australia’s decision to cancel tennis star Novak Djokovic’s visa for a second time was driven by fear that letting him stay could foster antivaccine sentiment during a surge in Covid-19 cases, court documents show. Immigration minister Al...
Jan 15 2022
Energy, Environment, Resources
By:
Scott Sumner
The environmental movement is a puzzling phenomenon. On the one hand, environmentalists frequently claim that global warming is a major problem, perhaps the major problem facing the globe. Yet despite these expressed views, one repeatedly see environmentalists opposing the sorts of steps that would be required to addre...